


These Are the Days That Bind You Together

by ShowMeAHero



Series: Babies, Blood Oaths, and Other Mistakes [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 21:33:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Loki and Thor, blood brothers, set out to rebuild their bond. On the way, they come across a cave that just so happens to have the only other living being on that planet - an infant child, helpless and cursed.





	These Are the Days That Bind You Together

**Author's Note:**

> I had, like, an image from this in my head, and ended up writing this whole thing as a result.
> 
> Title pulled from "[Bad Blood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoNYlV07Cf8)" by Bastille.

Thor and Loki had been journeying for what seemed to be eons. After everything that had happened - all the nonsense with Thor’s friends, all the business with Thanos that still raised Loki’s skin and gave him a cold sweat, all the chaos surrounding the Infinity Stones - it seemed almost poetic for the two of them to just set out on their own for a bit. Traveling the realms, traversing all climates, without anyone else around.

It would be enough time to set anyone’s teeth on edge.

Thor had insisted, at the beginning of all this, that they begin at the great Odin Stone, through which they sliced their palms, clasped their hands through the hole in the Stone, and swore to one another a blood oath that would bind them to one another. Loki could still feel the strength and magic of the bond if he felt for it. He wondered what it felt like to Thor, who was less sensitive to it all and yet still so powerful in his own right.

“What are you looking at?” Thor asked, as they hiked. Loki had been caught by looking at the patch over his brother’s eye; he often forgot it was there. He had expected it to make Thor more closely resemble their father, but, in truth, it made him seem all the more different.

“I was considering the magic of our bond,” Loki told him. He had promised he would be truthful, at least with Thor, and so he was - most of the time. He saved the lies and tricks for when they were needed. God of tricks, lies, deceit though he may be, he was still a brother and a loyal individual. He still felt things, anyways.

“What about it?” Thor asked. The planet they had chosen to take up residence on was filled with sand and dusty trees, mountains of red dirt and two suns. Loki felt unbearably hot, but it was better than the icy cold that sometimes overtook him. He left the grumbling to a minimum and resolved to choose their next destination.

“How does it feel?” Loki asked. “To you, I mean.”

Thor shrugged. “Normal. They should’ve bonded us when we were younger.”

“Hindsight,” Loki commented. Thor nodded, setting his walking stick to the ground again. Loki followed after. “We can’t keep doing this much longer.”

“Walking?”

“Traveling,” Loki clarified. “You’re the king of Asgard.”

“If the Asgardians needed me, Heimdall would let me know,” Thor said, in that way he had of both explaining and condescending. Loki glanced at him sideways.

“Do you not wish to be amongst your people?” Loki asked. Thor kept moving; Loki kept following.

_ “Our  _ people,” Thor reminded him. Old habits and all that, Loki supposed. “They do not need me at the moment. They’re settled in. They’ll need a king who’s ready to do the same.”

“And you are not?” Loki pushed. Thor stopped and turned back; Loki faltered and halted beside him, the two of them standing in the half-setting of the suns.

“Not yet,” Thor said. “Something’s…”

“Missing?” Loki suggested. Thor nodded.

“I can feel it,” he told him, raising the hand not holding the walking stick. His one eye traced the crackles of lightning that flowed along the joints of his fingers. “Anyways, what’s a year or two when we’ve been alive this long?”

“And probably will stay alive even longer,” Loki added. Thor smiled.

“That’s confident of you,” Thor said, and Loki was ready to reply when he caught a sound on the wind. More sensation than reality, more feeling than air - he stopped mid-breath and froze, turning his head just slightly to better feel for what the change had been.

“Loki, what-” Thor began, but Loki just shot his hand up to cover Thor’s mouth and listened more intently.

“There’s something wrong,” was all Loki could provide. He turned around, facing the direction the plea had come from.

“There’s not supposed to be anyone on this planet,” Thor reminded him, brow furrowed. Loki was already moving.

“Tell that to them,” Loki said, picking up his pace. Thor jogged to catch up, and the two of them twined their way up the mountain they had only been at the base at, Loki following the sensation, the desperation caught in the wind. Thor seemed willing enough to trust him, that this wouldn’t be a joke, and Loki finally found the source of it all: a cave, carved into the side of the mountain. He slid his knives from his sleeves and hid around the side of the mouth of the cave.

“What’s in there?” Loki hissed. Thor carefully peeked around, holding his walking stick like a club. With a frown, he shifted, stepping fully into the mouth. Loki resisted the urge to yank him backwards; he briefly missed his brother’s long hair.

“It’s a child,” Thor told him. Loki frowned himself, sticking his knives back up his sleeves and following Thor into the cave. Sure enough, there was an infant child laying in the sand, staring up at them with wide brown eyes. Thor peered over it hesitantly; Loki found their differences in sizes laughable in the face of Thor’s concerned expression.

“What’s wrong with it?” Thor asked. Loki knelt beside the silent infant, holding his hands above their body and shutting his eyes, seeking any sort of pain, any sign for why the child would be in a cave, alone, on a planet meant to have no inhabitants.

“She has no memories,” Loki informed him. “She’s of Vanaheim.”

“A Vanir child?” Thor asked, crouching down on the other side of the child. “How did she get here?”

Loki stood, searching the cave floor, then its walls, for any hints, anything at all. All he could find was one rune in the very corner, nearly shattered: protection.

“Abandoned,” Loki told Thor. “Likely didn’t believe anyone would find her.”

“That’s not very nice, is it?” Thor asked, both of the child and of Loki. Loki returned to his side, and the two of them stood, hovering over the infant, staring down at her. She stared right back; dusty, dark, helpless.

“Well,” Loki said.

“Yeah,” Thor agreed. Loki tore off his traveling cloak and set to twist it around his torso. “What are you doing?”

“We have to take her with us,” Loki told him. Thor furrowed his brow. “What, you want to leave her here?”

“No, I just-” Thor looked down at the child again.  _ “You  _ don’t want to leave her here?”

“Oh, honestly,” Loki grumbled. He tugged the knot of the cloak into place, creating a makeshift sling across his chest. “Give her to me.”

Thor laughed, reaching down and sliding the child into his palms. His big hands nearly swallowed her whole. He placed her carefully into the hammock of the sling, snug against Loki’s chest. She remained silent the whole time.

“She shouldn’t slide?” Thor asked. Loki shifted her until he felt comfortable with her position, and it was like the beacon shut off all at once, and time unfroze. The child blinked, and yawned, stretching tiny arms, fingers grasping at the clasps on Loki’s clothing. The rune in the corner of the cave shattered, and the desperate wind Loki had previously felt no longer blew.

“Guess that worked,” Thor commented. He raised his walking stick up. “Heimdall! We’re ready!”

The two of them waited, but nothing happened. Loki tightened his grip on the child.

“Heimdall!” Thor called again. Nothing, still. He stepped outside the cave. “Heimdall?”

Loki left him to his work and began inspecting the cave again, investigating the walls and floors and ceilings. He picked up the shattered remnants of the stone rune and groaned.

“What is it?” Thor asked. Loki straightened up and handed him the stone fragments. “What is this?”

“The rune,” Loki told him. “The one that just imploded? It casted a charm over us. We can’t be seen.”

“Perfect,” Thor said. He dug the point of his walking stick into the dirt. “What do we need to reverse the charm?”

Loki looked out over the unfamiliar world before them. Everything, for miles and miles, was orange, dusty, and filled with long plains, dotted by far mountains.

“Water,” Loki told him. Thor followed his gaze and groaned.

“Of  _ course  _ it’s water,” Thor said. “It couldn’t’ve been lightning, or sand, or ice.” Thor stopped, then turned to Loki. “Ice is water.”

“I can’t just  _ make  _ ice,” Loki reminded him. He held out a hand and flexed his fingers, the muscles in his forearm working as he tried to force the issue. All he had was a slight puff of smoke. “There’s no water here.”

“Well, we’ll have to find water here,” Thor told him. He stood, looking out over the vast world, then turned his attention back down to the child. “We’ve seen a couple of trees. We’ll find water.”

“I don’t know what Vanir children need,” Loki pointed out, looking down at the child himself. He had been far more eager to return to the Asgardians as a savior of an infant and being able to pass the child off upon his return; now, faced with the prospect of caring for the child indefinitely, until one or all of them died?

Not a fan.

“The Vanir are our cousins,” Thor said, examining the child more closely.

_ “Your  _ cousins,” Loki reminded him.

_ “Our  _ cousins,” Thor repeated. “Physically, not so different.”

“Vanaheim is wooded,” Loki said. “It’s rainy. There’s so many trees. She may not last here.”

“Do you want to leave her here and find out, or bring her with us and give her a chance?” Thor asked. He stepped outside, apparently pulling enough of an answer from Loki’s expression. He dropped his walking stick and raised his hands to the sky, pulling wisps of grey clouds together. A smack of thunder, a crack of lightning, and then more bursts - lightning exploding into the ground. Loki squinted against the sudden light.

“Are you quite finished?” Loki asked, as Thor’s eye lost its white-blue haze and returned to normal, the lightning ceasing its surges through his body.

“I thought it might bring rain,” Thor told him. He looked at the shape of the burnt sand where the lightning had struck, miles below them in the sand before the mountain. The child began to fuss a bit, grabbing at Loki’s cloak material and trying to turn.

“Well,” Loki said, stretching one hand out to the air, the other holding the child still in case she flipped her way out of the sling. “Only one thing to do.”

Thor picked up his walking stick again. “And what’s that?”

Loki shut his eyes, sensing the world around them. His mind’s eye passed through miles and miles before he found a small oasis beside a little grove of misshapen desert-trees. He opened his eyes again and looked to Thor.

“We walk,” he told him. Thor dug his walking stick into the ground and set off.

The sun set relatively quickly on the desert planet, and Loki’s colder heritage afforded him a more comfortable temperature drop as day became night. Thor, however, had no such abilities, and instead got annoyed by the chill that had settled over them.

“She’s Vanir,” Thor reminded Loki, as he used his own cloak and walking stick to fashion them a tent in the sand. “She gets cold.”

“I’ll keep her warm,” Loki assured him, assembling the few bits and bobs he had and conjuring them a small fire. It made him feel uncomfortably hot again, but the child seemed content, so he kept her in the sling and sat there, just letting the fire’s head wash over the group of them.

“What are we going to do with her?” Thor asked, finishing his tent and coming to sit beside Loki. Loki turned to him.

“What do you mean, ‘do’ with her?” Loki asked.

“You know,” Thor continued, “once we’re back with the Asgardians.”

“Someone will take her, I would assume,” Loki said. Thor frowned.

“But we found her,” Thor reminded him. “And there’s hardly enough space for them on Midgard as it is.”

“She’s hardly the size of a dog, Thor,” Loki pointed out. “She’ll fit.”

“I mean,” Thor said, a little more seriously, “that the families that survived - that’s all that’s left. There might not be…  _ space.” _

“Elegant as always, brother,” Loki replied. He reached down and lifted the child out of the sling, for want of something to do with his hands. He hefted her head into his palm, her dark hair spread, feathered, against the scar from his blood oath to Thor.

“Maybe we should keep her,” Thor suggested. Loki knew it was coming; Thor tried to keep every animal and pet they had come across in their youth, their battling, their travels. They had just never had cause to take in an orphan before; the children and refugees that they happened to come across before everything happened had a place to go.

Now, there was only the Asgardians, on Midgard, all in one community, waiting to find a new home.

And a child, all by themselves, with no way to return to Vanaheim or Midgard without the help of Thor and Loki.

“We’ll need an heir at some point,” Thor pointed out. Loki snorted.

“I’m never going to be king,” Loki reminded him.  _ “You  _ need an heir.”

_ “We’re  _ both Asgardians,” Thor said. “I’m the King. You’re the prince. We need someone after us.” Thor motioned down. “Why not her?”

“She’s Vanir,” Loki said.

“You’re Jotunn,” Thor said.

“She might have a family,” Loki pointed out. Thor motioned to the two of them.

“She does for sure with us,” Thor said. Loki sighed, then placed his hand over the child’s forehead, delving into her memory banks. Birth in secret. Living in dirt and trees. Rainbows, lights, shining, too bright - and then, dirt. Sun. Cave. Then, Thor’s face.

“She’s not very old,” Loki said. “She’s only seen her mother’s face, and ours.”

“There’s nobody out there for her,” Thor continued. He stuck his hands closer to the fire, rubbing them together, before he reached out. Loki hesitantly placed the infant in his brother’s grasp. “We’re supposed to be rebuilding.”

“She’s an infant, Thor,” Loki said. “Surely someone,  _ some  _ Asgardian wants her.”

Thor pointed to himself. “One Asgardian does.”

“Thor-”

“And he’s the  _ king,”  _ Thor continued. He motioned to Loki. “Maybe two?”

Loki stared at him, then down at the child. His place as prince would likely be more secure if he was helping his brother raise an heir, a healthy tether to add to the blood oath they had sworn. Blood brother, prince, and guardian of the heir to the throne - not bad titles if you want to hold onto power, if you want to stay at your brother’s side as he rules. Such a tie would keep the Jotunns away, too, he thought, and might cease the questioning of his status amongst the Asgardians.

“Is that a yes?” Thor asked, into the silence. Loki sighed. “Excellent!”

“I didn’t  _ say  _ yes,” Loki said, but they had been brothers for eons: Thor knew Loki’s yeses as well as his own.

“She needs a name,” Thor said, holding the child up to better see her face. She wriggled, wanting to get closer to the warmth again, Loki thought.

“After Mother,” Loki said, before he had time to consider it. “Give her your name, though.”

“Do you not prefer Lokadóttir?” Thor asked, glancing up at him.

“Not for the heir to your throne,” Loki reminded him. Thor looked down at the child.

“Both good ideas,” Thor said. He handed her back over to Loki. “She will harness Mother’s spirit.”

“Frigga,” Loki said. “Thorsdóttir.”

Thor laughed. Loki realized he had missed hearing that sound. “That’s new. Won’t get used to that.” Thor cast about for something before realizing, “Ahh, yes. No water.”

“What, have you gone dumb?” Loki asked, thumbing a bit of sand off Frigga’s face. She turned her head against his chest, yawning.

“We need water for the Ausa Vatni,” Thor reminded him. He picked up a handful of sand in one fist and reached for the child with the other. Loki moved her away. “C’mon, give her here.”

“Don’t you pour sand on her face,” Loki warned. Thor took her from his grasp.

“I won’t pour it on her face,” Thor assured her, placing Frigga on his knee and holding her head upright with his palm. He smoothed the sand over her hair, shushing her when her face wrinkled up at the sensation. “Frigga Thorsdóttir, I gift you your Nafnfesti, your title in my House and your place as heir.”

Loki always thought hearing that would anger him that he was not the next in line to the throne. Instead, after everything that had happened, he felt a slight sensation of relief. That relief turned to agitation, of course, when Thor held up his blade.

“What are you doing?” Loki demanded. Thor sliced his own fingertip, then held his hand out for Loki’s.

“Give it here,” Thor insisted. Loki did not.

“What are you  _ doing?”  _ Loki repeated, as Thor reached for his wrist.

“Blood oath,” Thor explained, finally catching Loki’s arm. “We’ll bind ourselves to the child.”

“Are you insane?” Loki asked. “You found her in a cave four hours ago, you’ve already named her and made her your heir, now you want us to bind our blood to her?”

“What,  _ that’s  _ the step too far?” Thor asked. Loki had the sensation that the universe was blurring past him while he stood in place.

“You’re going remarkably fast,” Loki said. “That’s all. You’re a King.”

“I’m also the God of Thunder,” Thor reminded him. “And, you know. Just Thor.”

“‘Just Thor,’” Loki echoed. “As if that makes any sense.”

“Well, Just Loki, give me your hand,” Thor said, still holding his wrist. Loki sighed and stretched out his fingers, allowing Thor to cut the pad of his fingertip open. He reached for the child next.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Loki grumbled. He took the child from Thor and held her tightly, keeping her focus on his face while Thor took her tiny hand and sliced the fingertip. She wailed, and Thor motioned for Loki to move closer.

“Quickly,” Thor said, and Loki brought his hand around to press his fingertip to hers. Thor slotted his bleeding fingertip alongside, combining the three, and Loki did the necessary oath to bind the three of them together. As soon as it was finished, he withdrew Frigga from the bind and set to work on healing the tiny wound on her hand. Once it was sealed back over and iced from Loki’s touch, she seemed more content, and was soon falling asleep, ensconced in warmth from Loki’s body and the fire.

Loki could feel the magic now, as they settled down for the night, Thor shimmying down into the sand to fit into the relative cover of his makeshift tent. Loki kept the fire going mindlessly, just trying to keep Frigga warm in the nighttime. He could sense the new bond between them, separate from his bond with Thor; the bond of child and parent, even if he was considered now the child’s uncle. Thor knew what kind of an oath he was making; Loki pushed at the bond in his mind, and the place Frigga now occupied, and felt a resulting warmth spread through him, and the urge to protect, so unfamiliar to him.

“Stop that,” Thor mumbled from inside his cloak-tent. “You’re keeping me up. Leave my brain alone.”

Loki didn’t respond, but he withdrew from the bond, focusing instead of finding where the water was on the planet. He followed the path for miles, through dark desert and around mountains, until he found the same oasis again, still so far. When he snapped back into his own body, he found Thor and Frigga both fast asleep, and was contented to lay Frigga down in his cloak beside him in the sand and sleep there beside her, his arm around her to satisfy that new protective urge.

Loki had always been a late riser, but so had Thor, and, comparatively, Loki woke up much earlier. Frigga, it seemed, woke up even earlier than that, and Loki blinked away to find Frigga writhing in the sand, trying to get closer to him and make noise at the same time. He frowned down at her for a moment before the events of the day previous came rushing back.

“We swore a blood oath to a child we found in a cave,” Loki said, aloud, like that would make it feel more real and reasonable than it really was. “Your new heir has accidentally trapped us on a desert planet.”

“That’s about it, yup,” Thor said tiredly, rolling over to face away from Loki and Frigga. Loki fished around in his bag for the oatcakes he had packed, and he crumbled them up in his fists before attempting to feed them through to Frigga. A shadow came over them and Loki squinted up, his eyes adjusting in the sunlight to Thor standing above him.

“What are you doing?” Thor asked. His newly short hair seemed to be a blessing now, as Loki’s long hair was tangled with sand and wind.

“Feeding her,” Loki said. “It’s all we have. We may not need to eat so often, but she does.”

“Can babies eat?” Thor asked. The two of them stared at each other, then back down to Frigga, who was grabbing for the crumbs in Loki’s hand.

“The sooner we get to the water, the better,” Loki said, and Thor nodded, turning to disassemble his tent. Loki packed up Frigga against his chest and the two of them set off again, Loki mostly focused on keeping Thor on track and feeding oat crumbs to Frigga in pieces. Thor kept them moving, driving his walking stick into the ground as they went, lest they need to turn back. Loki could feel the heat and dehydration getting to the child, through their bond and through his magic, and he knew Thor could feel it, as well, if the worried glances and hurried pace indicated anything significant.

“Do you remember,” Loki asked, as they strode purposefully through the desert, “when we were twelve, and I told you you’d never get me to go the shores with you, because they were too hot?”

“Yes,” Thor said. “You bit me.”

“I’m thinking of biting you again,” Loki said. He could feel the uptick in good humor through their bond, though, so he kept at it. “I wonder why Father didn’t tell us then.”

“Tell us what?” Thor asked, glancing back at him. He had a streak of sand dried along his head. Loki tried not to smile.

“That I was Jotunn,” Loki said. “Certainly would’ve been a lot easier on you, since you kept asking.”

“You stabbed me the next time I asked,” Thor remembered. Loki did smile that time.

“You shouldn’t’ve asked,” he said. They kept walking.

“Brothers stab brothers,” Thor commented. “It’s what they do.”

“It’s what  _ we  _ do,” Loki said. Thor reached back to throw an arm around Loki’s shoulders.

“I’m glad our paths converged once again, brother,” Thor told him. “I’d never have been happy being parallel.”

“We were moreso going in opposite directions,” Loki said. Thor shrugged, lifting his arm off his shoulders.

“Too hot,” he explained, before picking his pace back up. “Anyways, I’m glad to have you back. We only had a couple of years of fighting to get out of our systems. I’m glad to be back to how it was.”

“It’ll never be back to how it was,” Loki said. Thousands and thousands of years of fighting at his brother’s side, of having a family, of being a prince and an Asgardian - and it only took those few years to change it all, to lose their parents and Asgard and his brother, even if he got one of those back.

“Nah,” Thor said. “But maybe it’ll get better.”

“Maybe,” Loki said. He turned to Thor and hissed. Thor laughed.

“Don’t bite me,” Thor said.

“You brought me to the shores anyways,” Loki pointed out. “Horribly hot. Too much sun.”

“Can’t be a shore without water,” Thor said, and Frigga shifted, shoving against Loki’s chest with tiny strength. Loki pulled the top of the makeshift sling over her to protect her from the sun.

“We’re nearly there,” Loki said, pushing them to go just that bit faster. Thor had always been bigger, but Loki was quicker, and he was the first one to touch the oasis, to dip his hands into it and immediately bring his cupped hands up to the baby’s mouth. Thor leaned over and helped her mouth open, sitting her upright a bit, and together they rehydrated her and cooled off her skin.

“Now, break the rune,” Thor said, and Loki handed Frigga over so that he could set to work. He splashed the water into his dusty face and poured it into the cracked sand, creating enough mud to form together a fistful of shaped dirt. He held it up, and Thor, without needing to be told, cracked a little bolt down into it, drying it and fusing it together. Loki slid one of his knives free from its sleeves and started carving, filling the new stone with every rune he could think of to break the charms.

“There,” Loki said, carving the last indentation. He slipped his knife back into his sleeve and reached for a palm full of water, pouring it down over the stone. All at once, the sky broke open, drenching them all in rain. Frigga started to fuss, then to scream, and Loki traded the stone for her. Thor held the stone high above his head as Loki fit Frigga back into the sling.

“Heimdall!” Thor called into the sky, over the pounding of the rain and rumbles of thunder. The rain sent sand streaking down his face like mud. “Take us home!”

The bridge opened, sending them flying into the sky, the both of them dripping wet, Frigga carefully cradled against Loki’s chest. They landed in Midgard, and Thor immediately slipped on the tile floor and hit the ground face-first.

“Jesus Christ,” Loki heard a voice say, and, all at once, he remembered why he had avoided Midgard so long. Thor’s friends, the ones who had taken the Asgardians in, and who had helped them build the community in which they had lived, had earned Loki’s gratitude, even if they still treated him with hate and disdain.

“Ahh, Stark!” Thor exclaimed, climbing to his feet and clapping his human friend on the shoulder.

“You’re filthy,” Tony Stark pointed out. “That’s disgusting.”

“Is Thor back?” Bruce Banner’s voice asked from the next room. Loki let Heimdall help him to his feet, unable to use both of his hands without dropping Frigga.

“I am,” Thor announced, as if he was in a grand hall and not an office lobby-turned-temporary bifrost. “And I’ve brought my heir!”

“Has Loki been your son this whole time?” Bruce asked, after a long while of silence. Loki looked at him.

“Thor said you were the smart one,” Loki commented. Bruce laughed at the expression on Tony’s face. “No, I’m not his  _ son.” _

“What did you two do?” Heimdall asked, pulling the sword free and setting it aside in its proper place. Thor beckoned Loki forward and reached into his sling.

“Behold!” Thor said, and Loki could tell he was enjoying every moment of theatricality. “The princess!”

More silence.

Then,

“What the hell happened this year?” Tony asked. Thor grinned at him.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said.

Explaining the child was a lot easier than Loki had expected, and she was accepted rather easily when the story was relayed to the Asgardians. Heimdall said it was because they needed something positive in their lives. Frigga just happened to be that something, and came at a pretty good time for it.

“You’ll have to have an official Ausa Vatni,” Heimdall told them, as Thor was building a child’s cot for his bedroom and Loki was stitching clothes together for Frigga to wear. “Before the Asgardians. Especially if she’s to be of royal blood.”

“Has she got any family?” Loki asked, and Heimdall shook his head. The two of them had asked Heimdall to search the realms for any possible relatives, and the only one they had found thus far had wanted nothing to do with so distant a relation.

“Only the one,” Heimdall said. “You were correct.”

“Then she’s of royal blood,” Thor said. “We’ll have a real Ausa Vatni.”

Heimdall was silent for a moment before he said, “Did you forge a blood bond with her?”

“We did,” Thor said.

“This means you’re her father,” Heimdall said. “And you,” he said to Loki.

“That’s gross,” Tony Stark commented, passing by. He stopped to linger in the doorway. “How’d you pull that off?”

“Loki and I began a bond with her to become her guardians,” Thor explained. “I will be her father in name. Loki will be her guardian.”

“She has magic in her,” Heimdall said. Tony whistled.

“Craziest thing to happen this month,” he said. “Ahh- You know what? Not craziest of the month. Saw a guy regenerate his head last week.”

“I must meet him,” Thor said at once. Loki kept his attention on the child’s gown.

“What are you doing?” a newer voice asked. Loki shifted a bit to hide himself behind the bed curtains, but Thor tugged him back out.

“All is forgiven,” Thor assured him.

“All most certainly is not,” Tony commented, as Steve Rogers rounded the corner.

“Oh,” he said. “Welcome back, Thor.” He saw Loki and frowned. “You’re back?”

“Please, don’t all-”

“Quiet,” Thor ordered. Loki scowled and turned back to his stitching. “We’re having a naming ceremony, Rogers. Ausa Vatni. Care to join us?”

“Hell yes,” Steve said. Loki finished the final stitch and asked Thor to bring Frigga to him, the two of them gingerly dressing her together. Thor held her up, the long gown trailing nearly to the ground as he did so. Frigga yawned.

“Perfect,” Thor said, tucking Frigga into the crook of his arm and beckoning to his brother. Loki stood, straightened out his jacket, and followed after him.

Heimdall had helped them to orchestrate the ceremony on the lawn in the center of their new temporary Midgardian community, with the bird bath in the middle serving as their basin. Thor stepped up to the bath, Loki flanking him closely, and wrapped the child into the folds of his robe, taking her on his knee in the symbolic indication of his acceptance of the child. Loki leaned around him to take the water and pour it down over her face as Thor declared her name to the gathered Asgardians and his acquaintances alike. Loki looked down at her, at her large brown eyes, at the water dripping off her nose, and felt the bond pull towards her. He smiled.

When he and Thor finished the ceremony, and Frigga was officially gifted with her Nafnfesti, her title and her position as heir, they had to attend a feast, held in one of their recreated banquet halls. Though not quite the same as what they had on Asgard, the place was replicated to the best of their ability, and, inside, Loki almost had the sensation of being at home.

Almost.

Nearly.

“I still don’t know what you eat,” he murmured to Frigga, who seemed genuinely incapable of holding her head up yet. Loki wondered, not for the first time, who would abandon a child so young, an infant without seemingly any reason for abandonment.

He thought of himself, and of Odin. He pushed the thoughts away.

“Getting familiar?” Thor asked, leaning over him. He ruffled the hair on Frigga’s head, and the missing piece of home slotted into place.

“Ah,” Loki said. Thor glanced at him, brow furrowed. “Yes, we are. Care to join us?”

Thor grinned, sliding out the huge wooden chair beside him and falling down into his, picking up a tankard and raising it high in the air.

“To Frigga!” Thor exclaimed, and hundreds of tankards raised into the air in response, echoing his call. Loki looked out over it all, then looked back down at Frigga, satisfied.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> I also actually wrote a book. It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da! It's about two young ladies who hunt aliens and fall in love. If you want to read it, shoot me a message!
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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